


anywhere

by nowrunalong



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-04
Updated: 2015-02-04
Packaged: 2018-03-10 10:32:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,197
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3287066
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nowrunalong/pseuds/nowrunalong
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clara is taking the midnight train back to her dad in Blackpool. Jenny is taking the midnight train going anywhere.</p>
            </blockquote>





	anywhere

At quarter to midnight, Euston Station wasn’t very busy. A blonde woman with a large backpack reached the Arrivals and Departures signboard and stopped. Only two other people had paused their busy homebound scramble to scan it, quickly finding their destination before rushing off again. The blonde watched them go before looking up to read the board.

Her eyes came to a rest at the one leaving at “0:00”. Humming happily to herself, she continued on through the station.

— 

Clara Oswald yawned and rubbed the dark circles under her eyes.

The midnight train wouldn’t have been her number one pick, but she’d stayed late marking papers at her London flat before baking a cake for her dad. It had taken her three tries this time.

Mind you, it still hadn’t turned out quite like she’d wanted—but it was the thought that counted. Right?

Sighing, Clara pushed the box with the sad soufflé further beneath her seat with her heel. She’d kept her bag on her lap and fished through it now to find her iPod. Hooking her earbuds into her ears, Clara turned on her music and closed her eyes. The train hadn’t even left the station before she began to drift off.

“I like that music you’re listening to!"

The voice came from somewhere to the near right of Clara’s face. She jolted awake and noticed—along with the slight swaying of the train and click-clack of the wheels over the rails indicating that she was on her way—the light pressure of someone’s arm against her own. Despite that most of the car had been empty when she’d come in, someone had decided to sit down right next to her.

Maybe she should have put her purse in that seat.

After a brief internal debate about whether or not to pretend she was still asleep, Clara concluded that that probably wouldn’t work. She’d clearly jumped. She opened her eyes slowly and came face-to-face with a beaming, blue-eyed woman. Clara leaned backwards a bit, distancing herself a little from her unexpected seatmate.

The seatmate in question was petite and blonde; Clara estimated her to be about her own height and age. She seemed full of energy. She was also very pretty.

This wasn’t what Clara had expected to deal with on her quiet night home.

“Me too. And I was sleeping, you know. Might like to get back to that.”

She wasn’t usually so waspish with strangers, but she’d had a long day and was utterly exhausted. Besides, it was late. No one should be this happy this late. Clara was a morning person, through and through.

The blonde’s face fell a bit. “Okay.” She stared at Clara for a few seconds longer before shifting her eyes to look past her and out the window. 

Clara closed her eyes again and tried to resume her late night nap but found that, with her neighbour looking over her, she couldn’t. If this lady had wanted to look out the window, she should have found an unoccupied window seat, Clara thought, annoyed. There were at least five in this section of the car alone.

With a resigned sigh, she straightened up. If she wasn’t going to sleep, she might as well make some small effort to socialize. Clara liked her sleep, but she also liked people. She took out her left earbud and turned up the volume.

“Want to listen?”

The blonde woman beamed at her and accepted the proffered earbud. She frowned momentarily and looked at Clara’s, as if trying to figure out how it went in, before placing it carefully in her own ear.

" _Darken the city, night is a wire  
Steam in the subway, earth is a afire…_ "

The blonde bobbed her head lightly in time to the music.

“I’m Jenny, by the way,” she told Clara, her head still nodding up and down.

“Clara.”

“Clara,” repeated Jenny, smiling. “Clara. I like that. Good name, Clara.”

“Thanks.” Clara smiled back automatically. It was a bit hard to stay annoyed, she realized, even as she tried. Jenny had such an aura of excitement about her.

“What are we listening to?”

“Duran Duran."

Jenny hummed.

“It’s good.”

Several minutes passed in silence before Clara’s curiosity got the better of her.

“Where are you headed to?”

“Anywhere!”

Clara looked bemused. 

“This is the train to Preston.”

“Preston, then.”

“You didn’t know you were going to Preston?”

“Are you going to Preston?”

“No, I...” Clara frowned. Jenny was confusing her. “I’m getting the train to Blackpool from Preston. I grew up there. My dad still lives there.”

“Oh. That’s nice.” Jenny nodded out of time with the music to indicate that she understood.

“Do you really not know where you’re going?”

“I’m travelling,” Jenny said happily. "Like my dad. He travels. He left without me, and now I’m travelling on my own.” She paused for a moment, thinking. “It’s more fun this way,” she added conspiratorially. “There’s no one to tell me what to do. I can go anywhere.”

Clara smiled wistfully.

“I’d love to do the same. Me and my mum… we were going to travel, too. And then… Still, might happen someday.” Clara frowned and changed directions before she found herself confessing her entire life’s ambitions to this complete stranger. "Where’ve you been so far?”

“Loads of places! Telzon, Belafon Five, Terrina, Reitfas, Mars…” Jenny trailed off, thinking. 

“I’ve never even heard of any—hang on, did you say Mars?”

“Have you been there too? I didn’t really like it. The locals were a bit aggressive. Not that I couldn’t handle them, but I like it here better. Much more friendly.”

“Of course I haven’t—unless: is Mars a city?”

“Well there was a city called Mars on Reitfas, but I did mean the planet. It’s not too far from Earth, you know.” She raised her eyebrows knowledgeably. “The city’s a bit dull, and a lot farther, but if you’re going to go to _a_ Mars, I’d recommend that one."

If Clara hadn’t been certain that Jenny would follow her, she might have moved seats right then and there. She narrowed her eyes and mouth, looking every bit like the schoolteacher she was.

“No one’s found life on Mars yet.”

“Oh.” Jenny looked crestfallen by her reaction. "Maybe someday.”

Duran Duran continued to play.

_"There's an ordinary world_  
 _Somehow I have to find_  
 _And as I try to make my way_  
 _To the ordinary world_  
 _I will learn to survive."_

“I don’t think there is such a thing as an ordinary world,” Jenny said after a few more minutes had passed in relative silence. “There are amazing things to see anywhere you go.”

“Maybe when it’s new to you. There’s not much to see in Blackpool if you’ve spent twenty years living there.”

“Sure there is! No one knows everything about any place. And places are always changing! One day: a desert city made up of thousands of bright yellow tents spread out in rows as far as you can see. The next: all colour buried under a layer of frost, making all surfaces a clear, bright white!” 

Maybe the way she was trying to listen to two things at one was distracting her, Clara wondered. Maybe Jenny’s words and Duran Duran were melding together inside her tired brain, making her hear things. She frowned at the blonde and stopped the music, gently tugging on the wires til the earbuds tumbled into her lap.

“You’re doing it again,” she said as she put her iPod away.

“Doing what?”

“Doing that thing where you’re talking like an alien.”

“What if I were an alien?”

Clara definitely wasn’t hearing things.

“Oh yes, I’m sure the train to Preston, England, Earth, would be high on the list of places a space-travelling alien would want to go.”

“You might be surprised!”

Clara didn’t answer.

“Oh, come on, Clara,” enthused Jenny. "There’s lots to see here! Look at this train we’re in. Right now it’s the middle of the night so we can’t see much outside, but when the daylight comes back we’ll be a red and yellow streak on the countryside. Even in the dark, as we are, we can see ourselves reflected in the windows, and through them, the stars in the sky and the haze of city lights on the horizon! Is that not beautiful?”

“I’m not much for yellow.”

Clara’s tone of voice was changing from dismissive to teasing, but another minute of silence dragged on before Jenny continued.

“I love trains,” she concluded simply.

More silence.

“Alright, alright. I do too,” Clara admitted, exasperated. “But not because there’s anything interesting about them. I just like the way they sway a little bit as they’re going along; it’s comforting.

"I’ve not seen much to look at in anything much since my mum died,” she added. "Maybe because I wanted to see it with her.” Clara turned to look out the window to avoid seeing Jenny’s face. She never wanted pity from anyone, but that’s what you got when you lost a parent while you were still young.

Much to her surprise, Jenny didn’t say anything. Instead, Clara felt soft hands press something into her own. She looked down up at the object that now rested in her palm. It was a rock, but not like any she’d ever seen. It was dark but it shimmered green and pink and was full of small holes that ran right through from one side to the other. She lifted it up to see it better and noticed that small, rose-coloured crystals had grown inside it.

“Look down.”

Clara did. Her dress was covered in bright pink spots of light. The train lights shone unevenly through the multifaceted crystals to cast a complex network of small pink shapes across the blue material. 

“Ohhh!” The sound was out of her mouth before she could stop herself.

Jenny smiled at her.

Clara—finally turning to face her again—smiled back. 

“Can I show you some more things?”

“Yeah, of course.”

Inwardly, Clara laughed. Jenny was as peculiar as they came, but her childlike innocence and excitement was undeniably charming.

“I’ve been collecting objects from every place I visit! That rock you’re holding is Telzonite. It’s a volcanic rock. The crystals can only form in extremely high heat.”

Jenny reached down into the backpack she’d sat beside her seat and pulled out a small metal ornament. Little rods came together to form a hollow pyramid. In the middle, a metal sphere seemed to... hover in mid-air?

Clara’s eyes went wide.

“How does it do that?!”

“I have no idea!” Jenny sounded delighted. “Isn’t it wonderful? I got this at a market in Tingao. And this—" she pulled out a miniature book “—is from Louvo. Can’t remember what the fellow told me it says. Some kind of legend? I like it because it has these little pictures in it.”

Carefully, Jenny opened the book with her index finger to show Clara the tiny, intricate illustrations of a soldier slaying a dragon-like beast.

The pile of objects in the small space between the two women grew larger as Jenny took one after another out of her bag. A flag from a country Clara had never heard of. A kaleidoscope. Another rock. A colourful fan made of some kind of material Clara had never seen before. A curious wind instrument. A jar that doubled as a spinning top.

“Is this beautiful?”

Jenny sat the jar on top of the pile and looked expectantly at Clara.

“Yeah. Yeah, it is.”

Clara picked up the volcanic rock again and moved it around in front of her, watching as the little lights that were reflected through it followed the motion of her arm.

“You can keep it if you like!”

“Oh no, I couldn’t—“

“I have three, it’s okay.” 

Simple kindness from strangers wasn’t something she was unfamiliar with, but to Clara, this was different. To receive a gift so precious from someone she’d only just met… well, what was she supposed to say?

“Thank you.”

“You should travel like you planned to! I think it will make you happy again: you’ll see so many more beautiful things.”

“I think you’re probably right.”

— 

The train conductor announced that they would be arriving in Preston momentarily. Clara asked Jenny what she planned to do next.

“I have to wait a couple hours at the station before I get the train to Blackpool. Want to keep me company?”

“Ooh, yes! I’d love to keep you company.” Jenny beamed.

When the train stopped, Clara helped Jenny pack her collection away and waited as she slung the heavy bag back over her shoulder. They exited the train together. The box with the soufflé remained under Clara’s seat, forgotten.

— 

When the train to Blackpool left Preston, Clara was in an aisle seat. Jenny sat next to her with her face pressed against the window. 

— 

When the train pulled into Blackpool, Jenny took Clara’s hand in hers.

— 

Years after Clara began her own collection, her favourite item remained the same: the rock she’d “found” on the midnight train from Euston Station to Preston, England, Earth.


End file.
